Phoenix Supercross Recap

The first one! I'm so pumped to have gotten my first Supercross out of the way! Ever since I can remember, I have been going to baseball stadiums to watch Supercross and last weekend I was able to live the life long dream and actually race it! I even had my own credential and I didn't have to borrow one to sneak onto track walk!!

I knew before I went out to walk the track that I had to be careful! It's easy to walk out there and be intimidated because of how big it looks. Everyone was asking me if I felt nervous or not leading up to the weekend, and I was! But I also had to remind myself that I've been a Pro for two full outdoor seasons and I have to carry the confidence that I gained in Outdoors last year into 2018.

The whoops were soooo big! I definitely had never hit any whoops that were that big or that long at the public practice tracks. But I made sure not to look at that section for too long and I blocked it out of my mind until I was riding. First practice came around and they were big and slick, but I skimmed them on the third lap and surprised myself! They were gnarly, but not as bad as they looked while walking through them!

I was sitting 30th after the first qualifying session and I still had a few more triples in the rhythm sections to dial in. The track was slick for the first two practices and actually muddy and rutted in some of the transitions in the rhythm sections. I was confident that after they groomed it before the last practice that I would be able to hit the big rhythms and get a better time. The final practice came around and I got all the jumps down and beat my time from the first session by 1.3 seconds. I felt good! I charged the whole practice and was confident for the night show. My final qualifying time put me in 35th overall which is definitely not where I wanted to be and it made for a bad gate pick in the heat race. I will definitely be putting more emphasis one lap sprints this weekend, instead of charging the whole practice. I'm usually good at qualifying at the Pro Motocross races and SX shouldn't be any different! I'm confident that I'll qualify much better this weekend in Oakland.

I started on the outside in the heat race and came out of the first turn around 15th and I finished the race in 13th. I had a couple good passes but then tightened up and wasn't able to move forward like I needed to.

In the LCQ I rode much better! I got some TV time while sitting on the very inside of the starting gate and I did my best to tuck around the inside of the first turn. I came out around 10th and I was pretty far back, but I passed up to 6th by the end of the five lap sprint. I was catching the guys in front of me but I didn't have enough time. But on the last lap I was close behind 5th and I gave it my all through the whoops and ended up having a small crash into the tough blocks one corner before the checkered flag. I got up and finished 14th...

I was bummed that I didn't make it to the main event, but I have a lot to build on with how I rode in the LCQ. Now I just need to take the intensity I had and add it together with a little better start in the heat race and we should be in the main!

I just want to say a big THANK YOU to my Family, Friends and Sponsors for the continued support! I'm really looking forward to racing this weekend in front of the Northern California crowd! I grew up an hour north of Oakland and I have been going to watch San Francisco and Oakland Supercross ever since I was 9 years old. I'm expecting to see a lot of familiar faces in the pits and I can't wait!